Affliction returns as UFC shirt sponsor, done doing MMA, Dana told us so [merged]

Mamba · Jul 24, 2009

“I told him, ‘I hope you idiots stay in business.’ We had a record year in 2007. We had a record year in 2008. And we’re going to have an even bigger record year in 2009. I said, ‘I hope you … stay around in 2010 and burn every dollar you have.’ What they do is of no concern to me.”
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– UFC President Dana White tells Yahoo!Sports.com that an Affliction attorney “flew to Las Vegas only days after UFC 100 and offered to fold and turn its contracts over to the UFC if the UFC would remove its ban on its fighters wearing Affliction T-shirts.” White, allegedly, told him he wasn’t interested (in his own unique way its seems) — perhaps because Affliction contracts are non-exclusive and/or they would be difficult to transfer similar to the Pride FC debacle. If the statement is accurate then it would clearly indicate that Affliction is no longer interested in promoting mixed martial arts events long-term. However, it contradicts a statement today about the cancelation of its most recent event on Aug. 1, in which Affliction said that its “first priority is to ensure that all future events live up to the company’s high standards.” On another note, the Yahoo!Sports report indicates “several sources” revealed that the promotion turned to “Plan B” and is currently in the process of merging with Strikeforce. Officials from Affliction and Strikeforce could not be reached for comment on the possibility. Lot’s of mixed messages out there right now. Only time will really tell the true tale. In the meantime, interested in telling us what you think is the best possible outcome for the fighters and the fans?
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http://mmamania.com/2009/07/24/ufc-...-from-affliction-to-aquire-fighter-contracts/

Mamba · Jul 24, 2009

Re: Dana White being a douche

Affliction and Strikeforce merging? What a joke. I don't want to see Strikeforce fold, either.

speeds · Jul 24, 2009

Re: Dana White being a douche

Well Strikeforce and EliteXC pretty much merged... I don't see Strikeforce merging with Affliction, though. Strikeforce is legit, Affliction is more of a one-off type deal.

Mamba · Jul 24, 2009

Affliction folds, will sponsor the UFC (two sources so far)

By any measure, UFC 100 was a jaw-dropping success. It sold in excess of 1.5 million pay-per-view units. It was among the best selling closed-circuit events in history. It was available in more than 300 million homes in 17 languages worldwide.

Media coverage was intense, with headlines on the front page of the newspaper, highlights on ESPN’s SportsCenter and countless articles on the Internet. It was, essentially, a monument to the brilliant work done over the last 8½ years by Ultimate Fighting Championship CEO Lorenzo Fertitta and president Dana White.

The truth of where MMA stands in the American sporting landscape, though, will be told not by the extraordinary success of UFC 100 but rather by the reaction to a month of far less-hyped cards in August.

There is a significant MMA card on three of the five weekends in the month and would have been four had Josh Barnett’s positive steroid test forced cancellation of his fight with Fedor Emelianenko that was to headline the Affliction card on Aug. 1 in Anaheim, Calif.

Later on Friday, Affliction opted to get out of the promoting business and, in a joint statement with the Ultimate Fighting Championship, announced it would become a sponsor of the UFC. The fate of the fighters under contract with Affliction is not known yet.

Even with Affliction gone, however, there is still a significant number of fights in the month. The Ultimate Fighting Championship will put on UFC 101 in Philadelphia on Aug. 8. The next day, the World Extreme Cagefighting will stage a bantamweight title fight between champion Miguel Torres and Brian Bowles at WEC 42 in Las Vegas.

The most anticipated women’s fight in MMA history will be live on Showtime on Aug. 15 in San Jose, Calif., when Gina Carano faces Cris “Cyborg” Santos.

And then UFC 102, featuring a key heavyweight fight between Randy Couture and Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira, will be held on Aug. 29 in Portland, Ore.

Three members of the Yahoo! Sports Top 10 will be in action in August, as well as the two most notable women fighters.

After the runaway success of UFC 100, two key questions need to be answered in August in an attempt to determine how far MMA has come in its bid to reach the mainstream: • Will the casual fans or the first-timers who tuned in to UFC 100 watch at least one of the cards in August, either in person or on television?

• Will the mainstream media provide any coverage of the cards again or will it go back to largely ignoring MMA unless something bad happens?

Make no mistake that MMA is going to be mainstream someday.

There will be a time when a top MMA star walks down the street in Times Square and is as recognizable to the masses as Kobe Bryant or LeBron James are now or as Muhammad Ali was in the 1970s.

That time is not now, however.

We’ll learn how close it is to becoming a reality by the reaction to the MMA overload in August.

Affliction had been on shaky footing almost since its inception, when it paid lavish salaries to fighters on its debut card a year ago. Several sources have said that Affliction and Strikeforce had been working on some kind of a deal, though that clearly fell through.

The reaction to the Aug. 9 WEC card, which is on the cable channel Versus, as well as the Aug. 15 Strikeforce card may, however, give an indication as to whether the sport has gained any momentum from UFC 100.

ESPN, for instance, provided a solid effort for UFC 100. Will it deliver anything close to the same level of attention to a card featuring Torres, the No. 4 ranked fighter in the Yahoo! Sports poll, or to one featuring the two most recognizable women fighters in the world?

There were questions how well the Affliction show would have done had it gone off as scheduled, even with the Emelianenko-Barnett main event. Ticket sales at the Honda Center were lagging and neither of Affliction’s first two pay-per-view offerings, which also featured Emelianenko, did particularly well.

Fans of a mainstream sport will turn out to see a talent of Emelianenko’s caliber. Period. We won’t know now if they would have turned out to see him in the aftermath of UFC 100, but signs weren’t encouraging.

They will turn out for UFC 101, because the Wachovia Center has long been sold out. And while no one expects the UFC to come even close to repeating the massive number of pay-per-view sales it made at UFC 100, a card with a double main event featuring B.J. Penn against Kenny Florian for the lightweight title and Anderson Silva against Forrest Griffin in a light heavyweight showdown should be a huge seller.

The question that is yet to be answered is whether it will, in fact, be huge, or whether the sport will go back to pre-UFC 100 sales levels.

There’s certain to be a slight uptick in interest in all of the cards because of the awareness in the sport created by the media onslaught at UFC 100.

That’s a good thing.

The size of the uptick, however, is going to tell you all you need to know about where MMA fits in our sporting landscape these days.
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http://sports.yahoo.com/mma/news;_y...i-postufconehundred072409&prov=yhoo&type=lgns

Any other confirmation !?

Mamba · Jul 24, 2009

Re: Affliction out of business, to sponser the UFC

In a sea change for the promotional landscape of mixed martial arts, Affliction has agreed to cease promoting fights and become an official sponsor of the Ultimate Fighting Championship.

Kevin Iole of Yahoo! Sports first reported the news on Friday afternoon, and a UFC official confirmed the report to MMAWeekly.com.

A joint announcement between the Las Vegas-based promotion and California-based clothing maker is expected soon.

Few details about the deal are known, but the popular clothing brand could be seen on Zuffa fighters as soon as Aug. 8, when UFC 101 lands in Philadelphia.

A similar deal was first proposed last October after the postponement of Affliction’s second event, “Day of Reckoning.” Executives from the UFC and Affliction met in secret in Las Vegas and offered to take Affliction on as a sponsor and co-branded apparel maker in exchange for ceasing to promote fights. Affliction executives rejected the offer after a fiery confrontation between co-founder Todd Beard and UFC co-owner Lorenzo Ferttita.

The fate of fighters marooned by Affliction’s cancellation of its third show, “Trilogy,” is unknown at this time.

Check back with MMAWeekly.com for more updates on this story as it develops.
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http://www.mmaweekly.com/absolutenm/templates/dailynews.asp?articleid=9221&zoneid=13

Mamba · Jul 24, 2009

Re: Affliction out of business, to sponser the UFC

This is huge news. Fedor to the UFC, next ?

speeds · Jul 24, 2009

Re: Affliction folds, will sponsor the UFC (two sources so far)

Doubt there is anything that will give Dana a bigger hard on than this. Atencio crawling back to the UFC to keep his t-shirt company alive... Fedor shit out of luck...

He's a dick, but at least he's our dick.

speeds · Jul 24, 2009

Re: Affliction out of business, to sponser the UFC

Black Mamba said: ↑

This is huge news. Fedor to the UFC, next ?
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Doubt it. His management team actually think they are in competition with the UFC for some insane reason.

Mamba · Jul 24, 2009

WTF is Fedor's deal? Just sign a fucking contract. There is no other legit MMA group out there? Strikeforce? Come on, that isn't the UFC. Fuck his handlers are so fucking annoying. Stupid mother fuckers need to sign the fucking deal before Dana mother fucking white pulls his fucking deal and blasts Fedor on his fucking video blog like the tough mother fucking guy he fucking is!

[/danawhite]

speeds · Jul 24, 2009

I hope Affliction does the right thing and pays the fighters who were scheduled to compete.

Mamba · Jul 24, 2009

There is talk of some of the fights happening on the M1 card happening in LA later this month.

speeds · Jul 24, 2009

^ True, but none of the fighters are getting paid, according to the latest report. Bad to worse. A lot of guys were depending on those cheques.

speeds · Jul 25, 2009

Maybe one of the reasons Affliction MMA folded...

...is because of the bills they had to pay for Fedor's enormous entourage.

http://mmamania.com/2009/07/25/m-1-...now-about-affliction-cancellation/#more-14168

M-1 Global would like to sincerely apologize to fight fans who had made plans to either attend next Saturday’s Affliction and M-1 “Trilogy” event at the Honda Center in Anaheim, Calif. or watch the event at home on pay-per-view.

Early Friday afternoon, M-1 Global learned without warning or prior notice that Affliction had decided to cancel “Trilogy.”

As a partner of Affliction, M-1 Global was saddened to learn of these developments. The cancellation took our company completely by surprise, as Fedor Emelianenko, M-1 Challenge fighter Mikahil Zayats, and a traveling party of 35 people from Russia consisting of Fedor’s trainers, friends, family, as well as M-1 support personnel were all on a plane en route to Anaheim.

Additionally, Fedor did not learn of the cancellation until arriving at the airport and informed directly by M-1 legal counsel.

Following the California State Athletic Commission’s decision not to license Josh Barnett earlier in the week, M-1 Global was confident that a suitable replacement would be found. Fedor was ready, willing, and able to compete against whomever Affliction determined was the most qualified candidate amongst an extensive list of potential replacements.

M-1 Global understands and shares the disappointment being expressed by many fans that Fedor will not be able to compete on Aug. 1 as scheduled. However, we will work to ensure that Fedor returns to active competition as soon as possible.

With Affliction’s announcement that it will cease to promote MMA events, M-1 Global will look to help fill the void created by its departure with the launch of its new “Breakthrough” fight series. The first event is scheduled for Aug. 28 in Los Angeles and will feature “King” Mo Lawal and Don “The Predator” Frye in the main event and Karl Amoussou taking on Nick Thompson in the co-main event. It is our sincerest hope that all planning to attend “Trilogy” at the Honda Center will decide to help support M-1 Global on Aug. 28.

M-1 Global will also now focus its attention on the upcoming seventh edition of the M-1 Challenge, which is scheduled to be a “weekend of fighting” from Aug. 15-16 in Hilversum, Holland and will feature a total of 30 fights over a two-day period.

M-1 Global has also been inundated with media requests to speak with Fedor and M-1 Global Owner and President Vadim Finkelchtein. We will be releasing statements from both Fedor and Vadim via www.M-1Global.com as soon as possible.
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DennisRodman · Jul 25, 2009

speeds said: ↑

I hope Affliction does the right thing and pays the fighters who were scheduled to compete.
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I would have been very surprized if they even considered something like that.

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Affliction returns as UFC shirt sponsor, done doing MMA, Dana told us so [merged]

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Affliction returns as UFC shirt sponsor, done doing MMA, Dana told us so [merged]

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